Let It End (Wipe The Blood From The Steel)
by mihrsuri
Summary: It was never supposed to be Henry's Games. But in the end, he thinks with self loathing, hadn't he given the best show of all. [Or a somewhat historically accurate Tudors Hunger Games AU]


It had not been supposed to be him, is what Henry thinks after. After, after he sits in the victors village with no idea what to do now. Maybe this is just another indication of why it should have been Arthur, if Arthur hadn't gotten ill enough that he couldn't go. Arthur, Arthur would have known how to do what needed to be done.

(Arthur would never have had to kill Catalina)

His brother had always been the one who was supposed to go, who was meant by the capitol to carry on the glory of their fathers victory - Henry was just the spare, the backup, the training partner and sounding board. He'd resented it, sometimes he'd burned with it because...he was better, Henry thinks with a bitter laugh. Or maybe he was worse because he was good at it. Though Arthur had always managed to keep a cool head.

Arthur was better with a sword but Henry was exactly what the capital wanted, in the end. Henry is taller, broader, more at home with people, with what is needed to charm and dazzle, to bring in sponsors, to be the right sort of career and Henry thinks about teaching children how to smile and what to promise and how to be like him and he wants to kill Arthur. Or himself. Or maybe both, he isn't sure which except he can tell Arthur feels bad enough already.

("I'm sorry I'm sorry, Harry, fuck, I'm so sorry" Arthur had said when he came back, when he could barely look at any of them and part of Henry wishes he could give his brother absolution and part of him is savagely glad he can't and the other part of him just wants it all to stop).

His mother and his father never wanted any of them to go, he knows that. Knows that his father, would perhaps, know more than anyone what he feels but Henry cannot talk to him, just as he cannot talk to Arthur. He would fling poisonous words (aren't you glad, your favourite son didn't have to go to the arena, too bad your fuck up came back, did you know how they'd auction me off, did you smile when they made the deal) but somehow he cannot find the energy because, well, he himself is worse. His father was just a scrappy kid who became a victor, who fell in love with a capitol girl whose father was a victor, who had to give two of his children to the system.

Just how it works. He wonders if his father tried to beg.

She wasn't a career. That was the thing. She was small, she was beautiful and bright and graceful and could shoot a bow but she wasn't a career and she wasn't a killer and everyone knew it. It had been the first thing he'd noticed about her, actually. They who are about to die are brave, sometimes and she'd been so brave, even then. Her smile, her smile had been the second thing he'd noticed.

(She taught him songs from her district, one night. He'd told her about his music and made her a song. He wishes he didn't still know that song by heart, by his hands. He'll never touch a piano again but he knows exactly how to play it, the song for her. He doesn't want to say her name, but it's engraved on every inch of him. Henry still burns his music. It doesn't help. Nothing does).

The tribute parade. She'd...she'd been covered in a dress of midnight blue silk and her hair braided with silver stars and Henry almost couldn't look, but he couldn't not look. ("You should have the world - with the wit of an angel and virtue and beauty worthy of a crown" he'd told, quoting from something he'd read once and she'd smiled, a blush flitting across her olive skin).

He still can't say her name. He isn't worthy to say her name, to think of her. To have loved her. To still love her. He'll have to look her family in the eyes on the victory tour and part of him welcomes the pain, the punishment that will come and another part of him just wants to hide. To make it stop. He doesn't deserve to have it stop.

(It's why he won't let his mother and sisters hold him anymore. Such as him should not have such love).

They'd started off simply debating a book they'd both read and he'd thought nothing of it. She was doomed to not survive the initial bloodbath and he was destined for the Career Pack. Sometimes he wonders, what would have happened if she had died then, in the first hours - maybe he could have lived with himself. But then they wouldn't have had those days together and Henry does not know which would be worse - to not have had them or to have what he is now, blood tinged memories of love.

She'd saved his life. That was the great fucking irony of it all. She'd saved his life ("my mother taught me about medicine" she'd told him, bandaging his leg) and they'd decided to team up. Henry had tried to tell himself that it was only expediency, only for the time being. He couldn't even convince himself for long.

Watching as she shot down game for them, gathered supplies and bit her lip bloody trying not cry or scream treating her own wounds after they ran into a game maker trap. She was always braver than he was. Always. When her wounds turned septic and she tossed and turned with a fever that grew worse and worse he cursed inside his mind and outside he prayed, he doted on her and did...he did what needed to be done for sponsors.

(Show skin, but not too much. Make sure you sell the love story but not too much. Let everyone swoon, let everyone desire you, desire her, just make sure that you make it pretty. Make sure she lives).

When the game makers change the rules Henry twirls her around and kisses her until his lips are sore. She still, underneath the blood and dirt and pain, smells of rose water. I'll show you everything, he tells her - my family, my district and all of it. She tells him he has to met her family, her older brother ("George is wonderful"), her older sister, her parents and her town and she'll teach him to swim.

Anne shoots her arrows to save him and afterwards she sobs into his arms despite herself. But in the moment she'd been cool and brave and steady.

Anne. Anne. Her name. He said her name and Henry drives his fist into a wall. He should not have said her name. He does not want to remember this.

His second last kill. The poisonous words the other tribute had said, the words that had wormed their way into his heart, into his mind. He couldn't stop thinking it. Couldn't stop.

("You really think they'll let two of you win. Forget it Tudor. And you're the last person to realise it - you think she hasn't? You think a girl like her would ever cozy up to you without an ulterior motive? She wants to win")

He'd listened. He'd listened and they'd been the last two and all Anne's words had been tinged with poison by then. All of them. Henry had ignored her, when she'd begged, when she'd cried - when she'd knelt.

Henry's sword had sliced through her neck in an instant.

"My boy, we would have let two of you win, of course we would. What better indication of the mercy of the capitol, to let the star crossed lovers win. But this, this was far better - the lover misled by jealousy and hatred who tragically cut down his innocent love." the President had said.

"You are a true Career, a true Victor" his mentor had said and the admiring tone makes him want to claw his own eyes out.

"He was lying - he was lying. He always lied" Anne's brother had spat at him.

Henry Tudor knows he deserves it.


End file.
